Chandigarh University has become North India’s first university to launch e-Sanad portal, an initiative of the Union Ministry of External Affairs for online verification of documents for Indian and foreign students who intend to study abroad.
With the launch of e-Sanad portal, Chandigarh University students will get a centralized platform for contactless, faceless, cashless and paperless document verification service. They will no longer face hassle of paperwork or long waiting periods for verification of their educational documents while applying for international universities, work permits, or immigration, the university said in a press release on Tuesday.
Students and alumni of the university can avail this globally credible as well as swift online verification and attestation of their educational documents from anywhere in the world, it said.
Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha) and Chandigarh University Chancellor, Satnam Singh Sandhu said, “The launch of the e-Sanad portal at Chandigarh University will provide a centralised online platform for the attestation and apostille of documents of our students. This will particularly prove beneficial for Chandigarh University students who require the authentication of their academic certificates by foreign institutions.”
Chandigarh University is working with a vision to impart global standard education. Currently there are more than 3,000 from 60 countries who are studying in Chandigarh University. In addition to this, more than 1,900 students of Chandigarh University students have taken part in international academic programs at prominent universities across the world as part of internships, scholarships, semester exchange and student exchange programs. So e-Sanad portal at Chandigarh University will provide a transparent, accessible, and affordable mechanism for our such students to get their documents attested or apostilled from anywhere in the world, he added.Addressing students present at the launch of the portal, Dilip Kumar Jha, Principal Secretary, Department of NRI Affairs, Punjab said, “The state government had written to about 30 universities for launching the e-Sanad portal but failed to get positive response.”
“But I will like to tell you (students) that Chandigarh University is the first university to accept the proposal for the e-Sanad portal and was more than willing to do it. So I understand that you (students) are at a good university, you are at a safe university which is interested in seeing the benefit of the students. For international students, once you go out (to a foreign country) and take admission at a foreign university after passing from this university, you need not come back to the university just for verification of your documents. You can be where you are and get it done. And for the Indian students, if you are going to Canada or America, New Zealand or Australia, for document verification you need not visit anyone. Otherwise document verification required personal visit to a university. So the cost involved, time involved and the pain required to be taken will no longer be there because now all the verification process will happen online with smoothness,” Jha said.
Sanyam Aggarwal, Director Higher Education Punjab, said, “I will like to congratulate the Chandigarh University for taking such a good step for the welfare of the students because getting the documents verified from a university used to be a very cumbersome exercise.”
“This is something which is for the welfare of the students. And Chandigarh University has really taken a good lead in this. It’s a classic example of business process reengineering also because you can see that small things like adoption of technology leads to much improvement. You being the future leaders will join workforces in various companies. So we have to come out with a step which will have a very wide impact. Chandīgarh University is leading by example. I hope other universities will also follow the example,” he added.
Inder Pal Singh Sethi, Deputy Director General, National Informatics Centre (NIC) said, “Prime Minister had announced the Digital India program nine years ago to empower the citizens of the country so that they can avail the government services and e-services in online mode. Similarly, the government is enabling various digital services to the citizens and e-Sanad will help the students who will go for higher studies or jobs. But I would say that with Make in India and Make for India you should go for higher studies, but you should come back to India and there are ample opportunities created by the government where you can serve your country,” he added.
